


Between you and I

by AlexCaralyen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood Kink, Blood and Injury, Daggers, Enemies to Lovers, Enemy Lovers, F/F, Fighting Kink, I do whatever I want and no one can stop me, Love, Romance, Swords, hope yall like it its gay, hot ladies with knives, i wrote this drunk and depressed, immortal lovers who are also enemies, like seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28391703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexCaralyen/pseuds/AlexCaralyen
Summary: Her dagger against my throat is far more familiar than I'd like to admit.And it's not the first time she has me pinned against a wall with my temples sweating and a hole in my chest.It's a strange thing but a beautiful one nonetheless.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Between you and I

The invitation to the gala arrives in the evening by currier as I stand by the fireplace and drink the wine that stood in the back of my liquor cabinet for nearly a hundred years opened, yet never drunken. The label was never appealing enough and I always had more bottles than I could drink, there was never the need to open those bottles the least pleasant figures of my long life gifted me with. I believe this one was a gift from a corrupt monk wishing to buy my silence. I may have let him get away with it, I think as I sip on my glass, if the wine had not been so horrible. The taste is worse than I remember. But in the most desperate times, even the devil eats flies.  
The boy who brings the invitation still has pickles sprouting all over his long face and I feel the sweat in his hand when I press the far too many money bills into his hand and tell him to buy himself something nice. He stumbles away after thanking me under his breath and I close the heavy door again. I send back my acceptation the same day despite the occasion being weeks away.  
The lord who wrote to me is an old friend. At least he has decided that he is and I don’t find it in me to correct him, to tell him I do not have friends. We met in Hamburg, in an underground basis, just after the second world war had come to a bloody end. Was it ’46 or ’47? The years pass by so quickly. I came through the east. I stopped by on my way to London. He was the son of a British General with anger issues, I was the woman who put a bullet through his father’s brain and decorated the walls with it.  
You could say we have history.

I arrive only fifteen minutes after the party has already started. I am rarely on time but my friend does not expect me to be. He knows it’s strange thing, for a woman like me. Time flows so much different past me. It’s a peaceful river for you and a rushing stream for me.  
So when he spots me in the crowd and comes to shake my hand, he does not complain about my time of arrival. He is just happy that I came by on the right day. He pats my shoulder and insists to take me by the arm and lead me around, introduce me to all his associate. I smile and let him. I just follow the old man und shake hands and make small talk.  
We make a strange pair. He, wrinkled and weathered, skin of leather. Mine’s still smooth, still the same olive color it was that day in Berlin. It’s almost untouched perfection, one might say. A few people assume me to be his granddaughter. I just shake my head and call him a family friend. It is not a lie. I am my only family and he is my friend.  
When the formalities are done, he leads me away, keeps me to himself. I’m his favorite secret, after all. Who can blame him? I am quite the excitement, if you know about me what he knows. He asks me. About the days past and about the days to come. He soaks up my stories and my tales, like a dried out sponge touching water for the first time in years. He asks me about where I have been and where I will go.  
I say the same thing as I always do. I do not know. The winds will decide for me but they have not made my fate known to me yet. I will let him know when they do.  
He asks me where I bought my suit. It’s a new one and he doesn’t recognize it and he assures me he’d know if I had worn it before. He tells me he might be old but his mind is still sharp, thank you very much.  
I don’t have the heart to tell him we bought the flowing beige fabric in Istanbul ten years ago when he came to visit me in the old house by the sea.  
He asks me when I cut my hair. He remembers the dark strands going all the way down to my waist but now it just ends around my neck. He tells me he liked it better longer but the short style suits me.  
I smile at him and tell him I like the short hair more. I don’t tell him I cut it myself with a bloodied blade and I don’t tell him where the ponytail I cut off went. He already worries too much for his fragile age.  
We walk together and he shows me around the manor. He tells me stories. He speaks of his best friend and he speaks of all the adventures they had and that they plan on having.  
I tell him a sailing boat is not exactly the best place of a man of him. He should stay on land where it’s safe and help is near if he hurts himself.  
He laughs. So do I.

After an hour I leave him in the care of his closest friend. They smile at each other softly and I feel good leaving him there. I take a champagne glass from the first waiter I see and I wander off. There are too many people here. Too many watching eyes. And all of them are evil, I can tell. Full of hatred and jealousy and pretentious ways. I can never understand why my old friends likes these people so much. At least it is not my job to pretend to like him and he doesn’t expect me to do so either.  
My old friend rented quite the beautiful place, I note as I walk through the halls. The architecture is impressive and I have seen a lot of impressive architecture in my days. In my thousand and millions of days. This manor reminds me of my home, the lands where now Turkey lays. I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is that brings a familiar feeling in my chest to life but there is something. I wish I could understand why. But eternal days do not mean eternal memory. That is my curse.  
I remember I didn’t ask for the reason behind the gala as my eyes paint over the fine lines on the wallpaper. Is it a celebration? Or is it a mourning? Are we saying hello? Or is this a goodbye? There are a thousand reasons, I’ve attended galas with all of them. I want to know what purpose this one serves and I want to know if I need to remember or if it is alright for me to forget. I can always ask my friend about that when it’s time to leave this event and return back home. Whether that currently is. I think to myself, that is a dangerous thing. Will I leave tonight with a goodbye or will I disappear into the darkness without a word? I have not decided yet. I will let you know when I do.  
I find myself in a quiet room, in the back of the manor, where no one else goes. The walls are covered with paintings. Oil, aquarelle, acrylic, it’s all here. I study them and their pretty colors. I sip on my champagne. The music from the gala is distant but I can hear it nonetheless. The song that plays is familiar. I’ve swung to it in a small pub far up in the north of Ireland. I had a girl in my arms and a whiskey in my hand. Every day could be like that day for the rest of my life, in my humble opinion.  
One piece catches my attention. It’s a scenic painting and it shows an olive tree. One might think it is depicting a place down in Greece but something inside of me pulls me away from that idea and pulls me to think that is more maybe Arabia. Maybe it is my home where I have not been in so many years. I wish to raise my hand and I wish to trace the paint, maybe I’ll find the secret hidden within it. But I just stand there and I sip on my champagne and smile to myself.  
My eyes trace over the branches the artist painted with such detail. It feels so strangely familiar, is it a picture from my past? Or is my imagination craving something that is known? It has been so long since I’ve had that comfort in me. And it pains me, far more than I will ever admit to anyone. I raise an eyebrow and decide to leave it be, it’s not pretty enough anyway. So I tear away my gaze and I turn around, and I come face to face with her, a pretty thing with dark eyes more terrifying than those of a phyton. She stands before me, a foot shorter than me. I hadn’t heard her coming, I didn’t hear the door creak open. But she is always so quiet, a creeping shadow no one can outrun.  
I open my mouth, maybe to greet her, maybe to voice my surprise to see her here but before I can even speak, she moves and she does it quickly and now there is a blade against my chest. I recognize it the moment I see it. It is her favorite dagger, though she will always deny it. It is the golden one I gifted her centuries ago, on a small island near Japan, in the temples of a goddess long forgotten and only worshipped by few. The dagger has turned bronze but it is still as beautiful and the scorpion guarding it still flashes his thorn at me.  
“Good evening, my darling”, I whisper and I bring the champagne glass up to my lips. I sip on it but my eyes never tear away from hers. I should have expected to see her here but even the most steady archer misses an arrow every now and then.  
“You are getting careless.” Her voice is too soft for a woman as dangerous as her but I like it anyway. She will never admit she is ruthless, she is too much of a righteous woman to do so. Her dagger is sharper than I remember but I do not mind, really. Not even when she drags it up my chest, to my chin, and the sharp tip pushes against my skin.  
I shrug my shoulders and slip one hand into my pocket. “I am getting careless? Is that so?”, I ask her before I take another sip of my champagne, “Or am I just getting more daring?”  
She doesn’t move her dagger away. Instead she presses it more and more into my skin, deep enough for it to break at any moment. Her hands are not as steady anymore, she is deciding what to do with me. She holds the dagger closer, she wants to see what I will do if she keeps the dagger on my throat, if she doesn’t back away.  
I don’t back away either.  
She is not surprised. I’d be offended if she was.  
“Is it not the same thing? Careless or daring, it’ll get you killed either way”, she speaks. Oh, how I have missed that sharp tongue of hers. If it still does those things that I like so much?  
Her dagger presses against my throat. I smile as the first drop of blood runs down my collar bone. I enjoy this a little more than I should.  
But so does she.  
“What does it worry you?”, I ask as I tilt my head to the side, “You should know, better than anyone else in this world, that the grim reaper flees from me.”  
“One can never been too careful, you should know that too”, she corrects me and I shrug her shoulders. She lives her life in safety and in caution. She watches her steps and she never turns her back. I’d leap into a burning pit for a rusty penny. That is the difference between her and me.  
“What are you doing here?”, I ask casually as she takes the dagger off my throat. I sip on my champagne one last time, then I offer the glass to her. She eyes me and the glass as I watch her with a smile. She twists the glass between her fingers, she doesn’t trust me much. Of course she does, she’s a smart woman. Her monolid shaped eyes are as mindful as they were two centuries ago and I realize I did miss losing myself in them.  
She gives me a small look and I tilt my head, as if to assure her I don’t want to end this night so early. Then she takes it from me with a slight smile. She empties it with a one go. I take it back. My fingers touch a little while longer than they have to.  
“I’m just passing by”, she tells me. Her voice is almost tender and I forget she just held a dagger to my throat. I always forget, so easily. She is the one trick I always fall for.  
“And you decided to randomly stop by when I happened to be here?”, I ask her and she nods. I chuckle. “I do find that highly unlikely, darling. “  
She shrugs her shoulders and takes another step closer to me. “Is that so? Wasn’t it you who once said that fate has our cards already laid out for us?”, she teases me.  
As I roll my eyes, I correct her: “I did say that but that was not all I said.” I look into the amber pearls of her eyes and smile. “I said that while fate might have already our cards laid out for us, I will not hesitate a second to throw the whole deck out of the window.”  
A little laugh escapes her rose lips. “That sounds like something you’d say.”  
Silence falls over the small room now. We never tear our eyes away from one another. We hold each other’s gate and we hold it with pride. We know what’s to come, we are craving it, hungry for it, like starved wolves are for the deer’s cadaver and it grows so much, we can no longer hide It away.  
It is time now, for our play, our dance, if you will.  
“Will you be so kind and let me take off the jacket first?”, I ask her. I put the glass down on a small table nearby. I explain further: “I just had it cleaned a few days ago and you know how messy we tend get. I’d prefer to keep it unstained. Less trouble for me.”  
She nods with a smile. “Of course, of course. I understand. Those stains are so hard to get out and it is a wonderful jacket. Not your usual style. Maybe that’s why I like it.” She teases me and I just shake my head with a smile. Rude.  
She brushes the fabric of her dress into place and straightens her back. It is a beautiful piece, black tulle with yellow stars embroidered onto it, a quite artistic sun decorating the chest. It matches her ebony waves.  
As I slip out of my jacket, I can’t help but note: “If you knew this was going to be messy, why come so dressed up, darling? That dress is quite the show.” I fold my jacket in dramatic fashion and place it on the table carefully before I turn back to her. “I will almost feel bad when I ruin it.”  
“Maybe I like looking pretty. Maybe I want to see you ruin it”, she suggests to me and watches like a hawk. Her fingers are wrapped around her dagger tightly. She is waiting for me. She is waiting until I draw my weapon. She always waits for me to make the first move. I do it gladly. It’s the ritual we have both grown so fond of.  
I assure her: “You look pretty. I’d say pretty does not do you justice.” I take a step towards her. My hand curls around the knife secured behind my back. “You look heavenly tonight, you could turn gods away in shame of your beauty for they would know…” I stop and raise my free hand. She lets me. I brush one of her loose strands behind her ear. “…they could never be as godly as you are tonight.” My lips form a smile and she shakes her head with a soft smirk.  
“Old charmer. You try it every time but I like to think we both know-“  
In that moment, I pull my knife from my back and I aim for her throat in one fast motion. She catches the blade in her hand before it cuts her skin. She holds the blade tightly and pushes me back until I hit the wall.  
“-this will never work on me. Never has, never will”, she breathes against my lips, her face only inches away from mine. Her blood drips from my blade and onto my white shirt.  
I grin at her. “Always worth the try”, I whisper back before I raise my leg and kick her in the stomach as hard as I can.  
She stubbles back, letting out a loud groan. She catches herself quickly and notices the shoe print on her dress. “Did you really have to?”, she asks as she looks up to me, “Please, this is a brand new one, at least show it some respect.”  
But I just shrug my shoulder. “I’ll ruin it one way or another, darling. If you wanted the other way, you could have just asked” , I remind her as I let my knife dance between my fingers and decide on my next strike. I lick my lips in hunger as I watch her with thirsty eyes. I taste blood on the tip of my tongue. It isn’t mine.  
It’s hers.  
And I want to savour its sweetness for the rest of my life.  
It is the most addicting taste I can think of and I’ve had thousands, if not millions.  
She’s quicker than me, always has been. Before I can launch myself forward, she spins on her impossibly high heels and the dagger soars through the air and right into my right shoulder. I tumble back and reach to pull it out. She is with me before I get my fingers around the handle and she rips the dagger from my shoulder, only to sink it into the left one.  
But she’s not the only one getting careless. Her side is exposed to me and I take no time. I spin my knife and drag it over her waist in one fast motion. I still make sure not to slash the laces keeping her dress together. I’ll tear them apart another time, when it’s just her and me and the warm bed sheets.  
“Like I said”, she whispers and spins in my arms, grabs me by the arm and throws me over her dainty back. I crash into the table and the champagne glass shatters. The shards dig into my back and I let out a painful groan. Her heel presses against my throat and even though my air gets cut off, I don’t fight her yet. Let me enjoy this little moment. She looks down on me, flashing eyes, her smile gone for a moment. “Careless.”  
“You’re upset”, I note as I begin to gasp for hair, “I pissed you off!” And maybe I’m a little too excited about it. Before she can reply however, I grab her leg and pull as hard as I can. She stumbles backwards and falls straight to the floor. I grin again and crawl on top of her, my hand brushing over her thigh when it really didn’t need to. “What did I do this time?”, I ask as I block her dagger from making a hole in my stomach.  
She tears the dagger away and lands a strike right in my lower half. As I let out a painful groan, she tells me: “You nearly got yourself killed, that is what you did! And left me to save your life!”  
I am too distracted by the pain in my stomach to listen to her words but they sink through, at least when I sit up straight and pull the dagger from my stomach. “The hell are you on about?”, I ask before she grabs on of the vase near by and smashes it against my head.  
“The bloody priest down by Rome! Did you think I would not hear of you and your little adventures?”, she hisses and smashes the second vase against the other side of my head.  
I stumble to my feet, quickly brushing the shards out of my hair. “That bloody priest, so what? I was just asking questions, I wasn’t gonna actually do anything.” But that does not seem to calm her much and I have to quickly sway to the right or the third vase would have landed right on my pretty head. “Those things are hundreds of years old, where is that respect you were talking about?”, I try to tease her but she just shoots me a luck that, if I could die, would make drop dead on sight.  
“You heard the stories, of him, of what he can do. You knew he had done things even you and I cannot imagine and you went to him, offered yourself up on a silver plate”, she says and is that pain I can hear in her voice, hidden behind the anger?  
I shrug my shoulders. “I knew I was going to survive, I knew nothing was going to happen to me, darling. I was just testing the waters. Having fun. You should try it.” I am teasing her, I am fueling the fire of anger raging inside of her and I know it. So does she. But sometimes she lets her anger get the best of her.  
“He won’t be a problem again”, she tells me and picks up her dagger from her feet, “He will do no harm to you and you will not let any harm be done to yourself.”  
That is where I realize it and maybe I shouldn’t smile about it, but I do. “Oh, my darling…”, I whisper, almost excited, “Did you…? Just for me…?” I know her and I know she is a good woman, at the core of her very being and if she did what I think you did, then she must have been terrified for me. Oh my. “My darling, I assure-“  
She kicks me back and she’s on top of me, one hand on my throat, the dagger hovering above my heart. “You bring out the absolute worst in me, do you know that?”, she whispers, so tired for a moment.  
I reach up, but not to fight her, or throw her off me, no. I let her hold me down and I let her dagger cut me slowly. Instead I reach up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “But, my darling, the absolute worst of you is still the best of me. Have it, have it all.”  
Her jaw clenches as she stares down on me. “He doesn’t get to kill you.” Her hand tightens around my neck and her dagger pierces my chest. “Only I get to kill you”, she reminds me.  
And I gladly let her.  
I live for her and I die for her. It is that simple.  
“What a romantic gift of you, princess”, I whisper as the world begins to blur around me. I push myself up quickly and twist our position in a quick move. She lies under me now and I hover above her with a grin. I turn her dagger from my chest to hers as quick as I can. “But our anniversary is still two months away, isn’t it?”, I ask as I push the dagger down while she tries to stop it with her bare hands, blood running down the blade.  
“Well-“ She lets out a loud gasp as the tip of the dagger cuts her skin. “I’m always overeager, you should know that.” Before I can answer, she lets go of the blade, I stab her in the stomach. She swallows down the pain, holds onto one of the pillars and pulls herself out from under me, all in a smooth motion. Her heels kick me in the shoulders before I can get after her.  
I fall onto my back but she doesn’t climb on top of me. I am only a little disappointed. “Well played, well played.” I push myself back up. My knife is sitting in the corner across the room. Damn it. I am unarmed. Not that it makes me any less of a threat. But then I look over to her and I notice I don’t need my knife. The blow to the stomach was not light. She holds the wound as more and more blood gushes out of it. The stars on her dress are red now. The sun has been destroyed. Such a shame.  
“Let’s finish this, shall we?”, I say as I straighten my back.  
She looks up to me, lets go off her wound and twists the dagger in her hand. “We shall.”  
This is the final act. I blow, in theatrical fashion and she does the same, in what is left of her dress. She kicks her heels off and into a corner. I brush my hair away from my sweaty temple. Our eyes lock, we are both panting. Fighting like this can be quite exhausting, even with our stamina. Yet we smile. Because we both love this. We need it. Like stars need the night sky, like the moon needs the sun and like the galaxy needed the Big Bang.  
She makes the first move. She spins towards me, on her bare feet. I welcome her, I move towards her, to catch her before she can strike. It’s almost like we are dancing. We are pushing each other away and pulling us back together. We fight for dominance and for the dagger, neither of us bother to pick up that knife I dropped. For a moment I forget we are fighting as she pirouettes in my arms and I hold onto her waist. She looks so beautiful, so damn beautiful, that I, even if it’s just a moment, no longer see the dagger in her hand that comes down so quickly.  
Her dagger pierces through my stomach. I freeze. She twist it upwards and a gush of blood fills my mouth. It runs down my chin and down my chest. I tumble away, the dagger still in my stomach. I fall against one of the pillars and my eyelids flutter. But I don’t fear another attack. She is sinking to the ground, holding her wound. Really did a number there. I’ll call it planned to her face but we both know it was nothing but pure luck. As I watch her lay her head back and close her eyes, I smile. She looks the same, after so many thousands of years and I can never get enough of her. I smile as I feel the life fade out of me, I feel the pain take away everything except my love for her. 

I was born in the desert, in the burning heat, in the never ending draught.  
She was born in the sea, in the deepest waves, in the howling winds.  
I am the quicksand she sink into when the sun rises in the west.  
And she is the ocean I drown myself in when the sun sets in the east.

I sink to the floor next to her. I don’t care her blood is staining my shirt. It’s not the first time I am laying in a puddle of her blood and both of us know it’s not going to be the last time. I let out a shaking breath as my eyes stare at the ceiling. Without a word, I find her small hand and take it into mine. It feels so breakable, it is so cold. I trace the veins with my fingertips.  
“See you in a minute”, I whisper to her as the blood fills up my lungs completely and the air fades out of me.  
Her head just falls towards me. Her eyes are empty now, devoid of any life. Her eyelids are half closed, her lips ever so slightly open. She’s already gone.  
I follow her only moments later.

We steal coats from the wardrobe to hide the blood on our clothes. We don’t need someone to call the cops on us and we don’t need any more unwanted attention than the one we will already get. She picks a dark green coat for me. I joke it reminds me of a toad. She rolls her eyes and grabs the blackest and longest coat she can find. She takes her purse that she left here when she arrived and she slips the bloodied dagger inside.  
She cleans my face in the bathroom with a lace tissue. I just sit and smile up at her as her fingertips caress my face through the thin fabric. When she stops and sees my smile, she smiles back and I close my eyes and melt into her hand.  
We don’t talk, we rarely do after night like tonight. Yes, we have many night like tonight. A thousand. A million. Enough to fill a lifetime. Yet somehow never enough. Not for either of us. That is our curse.  
We sneak out, through the back exit. I don’t ask her how she knows of it, I just go with it. We find a quiet street just for the two of u and she calls us a taxi. We stand by the road and wait in silence for it to arrive.  
My clean jacket is tugged under my arm and my knife is back in its place behind my back. She checks her face in the small mirror she keeps in her purse. She cleans her face softly. I just point to where she has forgotten some and when she can’t find it, I wipe it off for her. She thanks me and I just smile.  
Sometimes it just hits me in the face how beautiful she is.  
I pull out my pack of cigarettes and take one out. I ignore the displeased look she gives me. It doesn’t hurt me anyway and she stopped trying to get me off them years ago.  
The stars shine bright tonight. The moon laughs down on us. The air is cold and clear. It’s a beautiful night.  
“I can’t wait to get into the shower and wash this all off.”  
I look over to her, she meets my eyes. She thinks what I am thinking. She knows it. I know it. It’s part of our ritual. It became one decades ago, on a hot July night out on the sea, where I loved her first and she loved me last.  
We share a silent moment of understanding, a moment of unspoken words that do not need saying, if you will, before she tears away her gaze and says: “My place. I’m not going to whatever hole you are currently infesting.”  
I grin and put the cigarette between my lips. I take out my lighter and flicker it on. I hold it up to my cigarette until I can feel the smoke burn in my mouth.  
“Anything you wish, my darling.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you'd like more stories about these characters and their story


End file.
